Amitte

Progress report: April ‘20

Being holed up in quarantine isn’t fun when you know you’re still gonna have to take exams later.
(Seriously, Poland, get your shit together! …or else I’ll inevitably overheat and faint <3)

That being said, I love seeing my fellow assassins’ happiness in regards to backlog progress! Let’s keep it going! :D
Here’s what I assassinated in April:
(Woops, I totally forgot! Here’s your usual reminder about my ABC challenges! General, Hidden Object Games, Point and Clicks, Visual Novels)

!Dead Pixels Adventure! - Ah, yes, an achievement fountain game. I am inclined to believe that this one doesn’t offer anything else besides the two levels it wants you to run through just to get its achievements going. I did just that and then let it idle. The game has no plot or visual consistence and the only cool thing about it is the track that plays in the background… but it’s the only piece of music that just keeps on looping. Still - achievements, eh?

A Game About - About what?, you might ask. I was planning on answering that question, but then I realized it would spoil everything. Besides that, all I can say is that the art is reminiscent of a preschooler’s, but I think that’s its charm. Also, the dev’s handwriting is very neat. Also also, you might want to keep in mind that this game isn’t very feel-good, in case you’d like to check it out.

Barro - Possibly the simplest race car simulator ever made. I decided to snatch this one up while it was free on Steam after noticing that most of the achievements are no-effort; didn’t take much time to get the rest either. The whole game seems to be made out of basic assets and looks more like a prototype than an actual game. There are over a dozen of tracks to choose from and you can input up to 99 laps, if you so desire. (But why?) However, there are only four types of cars to choose from and it doesn’t seem like they differ from each other, quality-wise. There’s apparently both an arcade mode and a time trial mode, as well as multiplayer compatibility; I just blasted through to 100% the game and call it a day - I can’t imagine myself not sucking at a racing game and I got this one done in 40 minutes, if that tells you anything about the difficulty. If you wish to spend more time with this game though, I recommend you put on your favorite music in the background, or else you’ll go crazy listening to the roaring engines.

Coloring Game 3 - When is L. Stotch going to stop? IT’S TIME TO STOP! I swear, if I see Coloring Game 4 becoming a thing, I might just go after the guy. More seriously speaking though, these really bring nothing to the table, except different images. Coloring Pixels still plays more smoothly and I don’t much care whether the images are animated or not. The only difference between the two sets of images seems to be the expanded palette, and so, after finishing the first half on my own, I used the automatic coloring system (which I believe was a thing in previous iterations, too) on the second half. I regret nothing.

HunieCam Studio - This HuniePop spinoff is a management simulator that lets you take control of your own camgirl business. You can recruit girls from the original game (excluding the secret ones) or brand new girls (who will presumably be appearing in the sequel to the main game, whenever that comes out) and train them, make them go shopping, collect some fans or put them straight to work. The more fans you collect during the three in-game weeks, the better the trophy you get. The game might seem overwhelming at first, but the guide I used to power through laid out an easy strategy that would have probably gotten me more stuff, had I used it earlier. The game itself is very pretty - the UI is sleek and the art is much more cartoonish (if HuniePop’s art is considered “anime-esque”, HunieCam’s has more of a “Western animation” feel to it). There’s also a whole another mode you can unlock called “Rock Hard Mode” and all I can gather from that is that it’s… well… harder, but after all the time I spent just 100%ing the game (I’m confident I did one or two runs that gave me nothing in return, so that’s wasted time) I didn’t even feel like checking it out. But yeah, if you’re also waiting for the HuniePop sequel and you don’t mind a time management game, I can definitely recommend picking this one up.

Lovers’ Smiles - Another game I picked up for free recently. It’s a simple drawing puzzle game; basically a re-skin of another game that is now removed - Draw_Love. If you have either of them, you basically have both. As for the quality, well… the menu can be hard to navigate, the hints are helpful only about half the time and the physics of the game can get weird. Other than that, it’s a fairly easy 100%.

Redrum: Time Lies - Y’know… the first one was much better. It had achievements and it could actually be classified as a HOG. This one is more of a point-and-click hybrid with puzzles. Said puzzles get increasingly more and more challenging (and the skip charge takes a solid moment), so thanks to not having any achievements relate to the gameplay, I could allow myself to skip a few. The ending also shows that the devs wanted to make another sequel… honestly, I think I’m glad they didn’t.

Simple Story - Alex - That was… well, a game. It’s as simple as RPGMaker games get… but it’s super uninspired and the English is terrible. On one hand - hey, it doesn’t make you go around collecting things for over 2 hours, just so you can’t refund it afterwards, but on the other hand… the plot is… wow. Just wow. I don’t care where you’re from, alcoholism isn’t normal and, uh… yeah, that’s all I can say about that game. But hey, at least I got to claim it for free.

The Deed - Also known as “Murder Your Sister Simulator”. One rainy evening, you arrive at your family home under the guise of celebrating your father’s birthday, but the only thing on your mind is the inheritance… which, due to how strained your relations are, will be passed on to your sister. And that is where The Deed comes in. There are a variety of things you can choose to use as a murder weapon, as well as multiple things that, when placed correctly, will serve as evidence framing someone else. Choose the perfect combo and you might just send someone else to juvie… or the case will remain unsolved. I’m not a huge fan of amateur-looking RPGMaker games, but I found this one worth completing, if only for the easy 100%.

The Pizza Delivery Boy Who Saved The World - I liked this one a whole lot. There’s just something different about VNs using photos of people instead of art. This one’s humor is pretty much all about the MC being the One Sane Man™, so if that’s not your cup of tea, you might want to hold out on this one. Oh, and I really want some pizza right about now.

There Is No Game: Jam Edition 2015 - This is one of those games I watched people play on YouTube and decided I didn’t need to play myself, since I’ve seen everything there was to it. Lo and behold, it’s on Steam and it has achievements. Naturally, I dedicated half an hour to playing it. There’s not much to say about this one; if you’ve seen it once, you’ve seen it all. However, if this is the first time you’re hearing about it… there might just be a game… as well as a few other things.

True Lover’s Knot - I find it hard to believe that this was made by Americans, because while the English isn’t bad… it really feels like your typical Russian VN. The humor is stale (don’t get me started on “Bye bye PewDiePie?”), there’s an overload of flavor text and it’s super weird to look at anime-style sprites being placed against backgrounds featuring real people. Hell, the title of the game isn’t even that meaningful! Oh, what does the title relate to, then?, you might ask. Well… “True Lover’s Knot” is the name of the recently popularized virus that seemingly only the MC can remove and/or fight… and then pretty much every device any character uses gets it at some point in time, just so you can play a minigame. Frankly, as crappy as it looked and as unnecessary as it was, the minigame was my favorite part of the whole thing. I mean, the VN’s attempt at being an “otome game” really failed too, because I’m not into guys that are only interested in their work, nor am I into guys who try to get into my pants with how cocky they are. Speaking of which, this game’s roundabout way of talking about sex was disgusting. It could have been better if it were actually funny, but here it was just uncomfortable. (If you want a VN that approaches sexual content in an over-the-top and comedic fashion, I highly recommend Oppaidius: Summer Trouble!) Last but not least, here’s two things to remember if you ever want to play this yourself: watch out for the “party” cutscene - it’s about twice as loud as the rest of the game and should probably have an epilepsy warning; and the achievements are locked from triggering in the latest build for some reason, so you’re going to want to save at the branching point, close the game and download the old build attached in “Properties > Betas”.

Twickles - Another puzzle game I decided I don’t have the time or patience to solve by myself. Luckily, someone posted their solutions to all the puzzles and thanks to those, I got done in minutes. Twickles consists of 75 levels with the goal of “get the ball from point A to point B”. To do that, you can rotate corridors for the ball to slide through as well as the whole board you’re working on. As the levels progress, new elements are introduced - sliding blocks, fans and portals that will either help your ball or frustrate you to no end (depending on how well you’re doing, that is). The game looks really good and runs with no issues even on my potato laptop, so if you’re into puzzle games, look no further.

Woodle Tree Adventures - I honestly have no idea why this gets lumped in with all those really crappy non-games. It’s a cute little platformer where you control a living tree stump tasked with collecting water drops. There is, however a noticeable lack of polish - no indication of which creatures can hurt you or not (most can and will, but one type for some reason will just say “Why are you hurting me? :(“ when you try to hit them, and I felt bad about that), constant clipping through other textures (which could work both ways, really) and checkpoint irregularities (if you fall off halfway through the level, you’ll end up back at the start of that part, but if you fall a few steps further in, you might get transported back to the very beginning) are what comes to mind. It might as well be my new favorite platformer (but that’s just because I don’t play many anyway). I applaud it for not only being cute, but adding some challenge on top of it. It got slightly rage-inducing at times, mostly due to the checkpoint irregularities, but in the end, I didn’t have a bad time. I wish there was also some better way to set the camera up when it gets out of control and I can’t see anything else than my character’s barky back and the huge, berry-filled backpack. I did play it using the keyboard though, so maybe it would be different with a controller; I was advised to play using one, after all.

Yes, Master! - This is the kind of game you’d find on a website with strictly erotic games, rather than Steam. At least on Steam it has achievements. The plot is lackluster and only serves for more sexual action, so it’s your usual deal. Also, I’ve never closely known a person going through PTSD/trauma, but I’m convinced they wouldn’t stutter that much. (Additionally surprising that the same devs seem to have made Metropolis: Lux Obscura, which I have yet to check out, but it initially looks a lot more appealing.)

See you next month, and keep on assassinating! :)

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